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Cambridge Day compiled a list of ice cream shops in Cambridge and Somerville to help you make the most of the last few weeks of summer. Although there are notable ice cream chains in our area (looking at you, Van Leeuwen and Ben & Jerry’s!), we prioritized shops that specialize in hard-serve ice cream that have a uniquely local presence.
Our favorites? Jamie’s, Toscanini’s, New City’s Microcreamery, and Kuya Jay’s selling Gerly’s ice cream.
While these are not comprehensive reviews, we hope they’ll help you differentiate between many of the local options and help you decide what scoops might be worth a trip.
Cambridge
Art’s Creamery – 99 Elmwood St., Cambridge, MA 02144
This Belmont-based shop expanded into North Cambridge this spring. It’s more like an ice cream retailer with scoops and pints. The shop is compact, so while it does have a couple of tables it would feel crowded if a group came in. For scoops, it carries New City Creamery ice creams, gelatos from Cold Fusion Gelato in Walpole, and Watertown’s FoMu vegan ice creams. It offers pints of FoMu flavors plus pints from Adirondack Farms and Farm House. It is a bit complicated to get to right now, because of the ongoing renovation of the Community Bike Path. But that location will probably be a boon when the path reopens, and on the night we visited there was steady foot traffic and it had sold out of several flavors. – Michael F. Fitzgerald
Christina’s Homemade Ice Cream – 1255 Cambridge, St., Cambridge, MA 02139
Cozied in Inman Square, Christina’s Homemade Ice Cream offers an array of delicate flavors, and is a great choice for those easily overwhelmed by a cloying and sugary scoop of ice cream. You can trust that this place knows flavors – it runs a sister spice shop down the block. Two of their most popular flavors, Burnt Sugar and Gina’s Mocha Explosion, pair well together. A spoonful of Burnt Sugar feels like sucking on a caramel candy that almost tastes smoky as it dissolves. Christina’s ice cream retains its velvety cloud-like texture in all of its 40 sweet and savory flavors. If you head there before the end of the summer, you can try their seasonal flavor, Fresh Mint, with a whipped texture and natural flavor that embodies Christina’s signature brightness. – Julia Carpi
Far Out Ice Cream – 100 Cambridgeside Place, Cambridge, MA 02141
With a Cheesecake Factory and Apple store, Cambridgeside in East Cambridge is like any shopping mall in that it strips away nearly all indicators of where we live and invites you to believe that you could be anywhere. Underscoring this is a new sweets stand in its newly developed food court serving ice cream from New Zealand. Far Out originally launched in Hull in 2020 and borrows from Kiwis by blending hard ice cream with frozen fruit. This yields a texture similar to soft serve, which twirls easily into cones or cups. Because of its whipped texture and the water from the frozen fruit, flavors like Kookaberry (vanilla ice cream with frozen strawberries, raspberries and blueberries) go down easy. But it also melts fast and the flavor dissipates just as quickly. – Ruth Tam
Honeycomb – 1702 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138
Be prepared for a line at Honeycomb. I stood in one for almost exactly 30 minutes at around 8pm on a recent Sunday night before I placed my order. But it was worth it. Honeycomb’s burnt sugar vanilla had notes of caramel without being cloyingly sweet. What I loved about the milk chocolate stracciatella and cold brew coffee chip, apart from the housemade base, was that the chocolate “chips” within were not in fact round chips, but smaller chocolate shavings. Indeed stracciatella means “little shred” in Italian, and the effect of those flakes of chocolate was that they lie flat on the tongue and melt easily, allowing you to savor a spoon of ice cream as a whole. But since it’s August, it was Honeycomb’s sweet corn and blackberry jam that was all the rage. This combination — which this reviewer buys by the pint every year — did not disappoint. It’s a corn-y corn flavor, and the slightly tart, blackberry jelly cuts through the sweet, milky taste for regular chances to refresh your taste buds and appreciate the corn flavor all over again. The flavor is so popular that the creamery maintains a countdown on its social media channels to when this flavor will be available and once it is in season, a daily “watch” for whether the ice cream is likely to sell out. – Shraddha Chakradhar
Jamie’s – 88 Kirkland Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138
Jamie’s makes sweet treats for anyone who has ever wondered … what does a bay leaf taste like? This aggressively cutesy shop improves on standard flavors with their homemade ice cream base, which boasts 15-16% milk fat, which seems higher than average. This results in a denser scoop that can allow flavors to linger longer on the palate. On my visit, I was delighted by one of Jamie’s summer sorbets, which can be a watery afterthought at other shops. At Jamie’s, the citrus bay leaf sorbet had body. This herbaceous and refreshing flavor held up, literally, against another seasonal favorite: the dairy-forward lemon poppyseed loaf. And, the waffle cone, which reminded me of a crisp pizzelle, was a treat on its own. The scoops live up to the shop’s loudly sincere message on the wall, “It’s sexy to care.” I don’t know about sexy, but at Jamie’s, it is delicious. – Ruth Tam
J.P. Licks – 1312 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138
J.P. Licks has locations all over the Boston area. Because its Harvard Square location is conveniently placed a few paces past the Harvard Smith Center, it’s a great place for tourists looking for a quick treat. It has a fair amount of indoor and outdoor seating so there’s no need to stand as you lick your cone. I chose vanilla, which didn’t stand out, and an offbeat choice of Akasan, described as a corn flavor with hints of cinnamon and anise based off of the popular Haitian breakfast drink. On the first bite of the Akasan, I didn’t taste anything but vanilla and anise and I deemed the flavor passable. After eight bites the anise flavor was starting to make me agitated. The flavor isn’t exactly as advertised, its description says it’s creamy and smooth but it was vaguely grainy which didn’t bother me but did bother one of the people I was sharing it with. The corn flavour is hinted at, the anise is overwhelming and the cinnamon is nonexistent. – Tavishi Chattopadhyay
L.A. Burdick Handmade Chocolates – 52 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Famous for its chocolate mice and decadent hot chocolate, L.A. Burdick in Brattle Square is now in the ice cream business — just for the summer at this location. The price for a small, single scoop of one of their flavors will run you a hefty $8.50, but that one scoop may be all you need. Few things are more satisfying than when an ice cream flavor is exactly as advertised and that was the case with the chocolate banana (banana haters beware — this is NOT for you). Given the store’s specialty drinks, I also opted for two affogato variations — the stracciatella affogato, served with espresso, and the hazelnut Burdick affogato, served with 72% dark drinking chocolate. If you choose to eat in, like I did, you’ll enjoy your ice cream in stainless steel cups — which also make for perfect affogato vessels. As the scoop of ice cream melts into the surrounding moat, you can abandon your spoon to just drink directly from the champagne coupe-like cup. The dark drinking chocolate with the hazelnut ice cream made for just the right amount of sweet (for me, anyway), while the stracciatella affogato — with a honey-like taste to the ice cream — sweetened the surrounding coffee just enough to make it a quick pick-me-up. -Shraddha Chakradhar
Lizzie’s – 29 Church St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Lizzie’s may be a small shop, but its affordable scoops make for a pleasant pit stop in Harvard Square. It has limited seating but if you snag one of the two seats outside you can people-watch to your heart’s content. I got three flavours here: vanilla, Charles River Crunch and Columbian Fudge Avalanche. The vanilla was smooth and rich, with a nicely balanced sweetness. Charles River Crunch has a few add-ins that are airy and crunchy with a deep toffee flavor. I didn’t love the crunch in the middle of the smoothness of the cream but to each their own. The Columbian Fudge Avalanche mainly tasted like coffee but had a thick swirl of fudge and bits of walnut that added a pleasant crunch. The sizes in Lizzie’s are one of the most economically sound things in Harvard Square. They have four sizes: kiddie, small, medium and large. The kiddie size was comparable to a small at other ice cream stores and cost a little over $5. My biggest gripe was each scoop’s absurd thickness, which made spooning it into my mouth a Herculean task. – Tavishi Chattopadhyay
New City Microcreamery – 403 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139
Hudson-based New City Microcreamery’s claim to fame is its ultracool freezing process, which uses liquid nitrogen to freeze each flavor’s liquid base as it gets whipped up. While their website claims that this process makes the end product smoother, we noticed an icier mouthfeel that could be refreshing on a hot day, but noticeably less custard-y than expected. Where New City shines is in the flavor department, with plenty of offerings for dessert people. These include a pleasant tiramisu option and a fan favorite in its baklava ice cream, which has bits of delightfully crispy phllyo pastry incorporated throughout that somehow manage to avoid getting soft or claggy in the mix. While chocolate and nut lovers may find themselves with a wider array of choices, we were also impressed by one of the few fruit options on the menu: a raspberry chocolate chip concoction with a base that was zingy, fresh, and sans any artificial “very berry” nonsense. But that, like the texture, is a matter of personal preference. – Jane Petersen
Third Time Together – 399 Binney Street, Cambridge, MA 02141
Third Time Together’s flavors are often delicate and surprising with names that offer important history lessons about their ingredients. For example, their vanilla bean ice cream –a crowd favorite called Albius’s Legacy– is paired with Madagascar pink peppercorn and named after the enslaved Réunionese teenager who pioneered the manual pollination of vanilla in the 1840s. Third Time Together is not afraid to make ice cream sour, salty, and smoky, which often rewards adults who don’t need dessert to hearken to childhood. As delightful as many flavors are, there is occasional inconsistency in offerings and flavor. Sometimes only certain flavors are available, a scoop can come out crumbly, or their sorbet can be tart to the point of pain. The small shop, which also serves tasty mezze, stuffed pitas, and other Levantine food, can fill up quickly, especially after a movie ends at the neighboring Landmark Kendall Square Cinema. – Ruth Tam
Toscanini’s – 899 Main St, Cambridge, MA, 02139
With over 25 flavors from which to choose, Toscanini’s has dispensed with the need to dress up their scoops with toppings and sauces. And once you’ve tried one of their specialty flavors, you may find that your ice cream craving will be hard to satisfy with vanilla or one of its classic peers. One of the flavors that many Toscanini’s fans crave is B3, a brown butter and brown sugar base with large gooey brownie chunks. Unlike any other ice cream I’ve tried, B3 leaves a warm umami coating in the mouth and satisfies even with a kiddie-size scoop. If you’d rather indulge in a larger scoop, you may be better off with a slightly lighter fan favorite, Mango Sticky Rice. The sticky rice base and coconut chunks are surprisingly redolent of the Thai dessert, although I was left wanting a little more of that tart mango puree swirled throughout. Whether you’re at the store’s Kendall Square or Central Square location, you’ll always be able to find a flavor to match your craving. Maybe you’ll be braver than me and try the Goat Cheese Brownie. – Julia Carpi
Somerville
Forge – 626 Somerville Ave, Somerville, MA 02143
Tucked away in a strip mall complex in Somerville’s Spring Hill neighborhood, Forge Baking Co. & Ice Cream Bar is a cafe and bakery first, ice cream bar second. The ice cream bar adjoins the cafe space, but hasn’t been operational all summer, and has no imminent plans to be. Its ice cream selections (small when it comes to scoops but vast when it comes to pre-packed pints)— have classics like vanilla, chocolate and strawberry but also some twists — including the brown butter ginger, apparently a customer favorite. The ice cream base has a stretchy quality to it — scoop a spoon to taste and you’ll see something reminiscent of a cheese pull. The vanilla had a floral note to it and didn’t taste plain. The brown butter on its own didn’t really come through but its presence probably helped cut the pungency of the spicy pieces of ginger. I also ordered a scoop of good ol’ strawberry and was surprised by how much it tasted like the real fruit (almost out of season now). With that also came some icy bites (probably because of fruit’s high water content), but none that detracted from the overall experience of a refreshing, summer-appropriate ice cream. – Shraddha Chakradhar
Gracie’s – 22 Union Square, Somerville, MA 02143
Gracie’s looks like a place where you go for the ice cream and stay for the activism, or maybe vice versa. On the front window, what looks at first glance like a menu turns out to be multi-page instructions on what to do when encountering agents from the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Other signs promote different progressive causes. The ice cream is made on premises and feature 14% butterfat. Owner Aaron Cohen has 16 flavors at any given time, rotating in new flavors multiple times a day as others sell out. About half of its flavors at any given time are gluten-free (look for labels on the menu board), and it keeps a non-dairy sorbet available (it also has Lactaid for sale). Sometimes these flavors are political, like its Green New Deal With It Mint Chip, sometimes seasonal, like Day After Easter On Sale Candy, and sometimes whimsical, like Unicorn Poop. It has retired vanilla as a flavor, so we had to settle for sweet cream, which was indeed sweet and creamy, if not that distinct from the honey cornbread ice cream. It did have pandan, which is bright green and pleasant, vanilla-esque but lighter with hints of nuts. Its best-seller is black raspberry chip and it is excellent, with generous chunks of chocolate and a flavorful consistency to the raspberry base. – Tavishi Chattopadhyay and Michael F. Fitzgerald
Kuya Jay’s Ube Kafe – 415 Medford St, Somerville, MA 02145
Kuya Jay’s in Winter Hill may have taken over the space that Gerly’s used to occupy (and before that, Tipping Cow) on Medford Ave, but that doesn’t mean that the ice cream has gone away. The Filipino cafe and bakery still serves classic Gerly’s flavors like fig and goat cheese and dark chocolate sea salt, but it now also offers flavors common in southeast Asia. They also have uniquely Filipino treats like pandesal ice cream sandwiches and halo-halo. Your ice cream options now include flavors like pandan, durian, and sweet corn. And the punchy sorbet flavors include mango peach calamansi and guava. While these scoops lean on the sweet side, they all taste true to their vegetable or fruit ingredients, many of which are sourced at nearby Neighborhood Produce. The sweet corn, which has frozen kernels in the base and is served with melted better and shaved salt, takes like corn on the cob in ice cream form. Less true-to-flavor is their durian, which is –at best– 10 percent durian flavor, and because of that, easy for many to love. Even sweeter than the ice cream? The shop’s servers, who are enthusiastic and patient with customers new to these flavors. – Ruth Tam
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